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Another proud recipient of a DOE Challenge Home Builder Award is Salt Lake City, Utah-based Garbett Homes. Their first Challenge Home, which they built in Herriman, Utah, won in the Production Builders category.[continue reading]

Home Energy authors and Cornell College of Human Ecology professors Joe Laquatra and Mark Pierce and colleagues provide important information for anyone interested in energy efficient and healthy homes. In this issue they cover the presence of dangerous levels of radon in natural gas extracted through fracking, suprisingly poor complaince with energy codes in new homes in New York, and more.[continue reading]

Buried in 2012 technical committee reports to the Florida Building Commission are new findings that show the cost per square foot is much less for energy code compliance in Florida with reflective insulation. Because of the technical studies and experts testimony, the 2013 Florida Building Code Energy Conservation sections will be rewritten with this new knowledge about the benefits of reflective insulation.[continue reading]

While attending the Solar Decathlon in southern California last month, we also had the pleasure of attending DOE’s Housing Innovation Awards ceremony. Impressed by the various builders committed to home performance, we thought we’d take some time to chat with a few of the recent winners of DOE’s Challenge Home projects.[continue reading]

Early in its development, Clean Energy Works Oregon (CEWO) knew that actively engaging contractors was critical to the program’s success. CEWO started its program by holding regular contractor meetings, but they were in the evenings; didn’t always have agendas; and the people needed to make decisions weren’t always in attendance. Staff revised their approach to meet with a rotating group of contractors every two weeks and at a time ...[continue reading]

Before they even think about adding solar, customers need to understand that there’s more to energy efficiency than using renewable energy resources. It's important to explain to your customers who are interested in solar that their homes are the most energy efficient when they have a tight building envelope. Keep in mind, however, that a lot of customers who know about solar won’t know what that means, so you have to ...[continue reading]

When I first got into home performance contracting back in 2003 in the San Francisco Bay Area, we were one of two companies trained and certified on home performance diagnostics and remediation. We were out there trying to convince our clients that we had the tools, technology, and knowledge to help them make their homes more energy efficient, more comfortable, and safer to live in. It was as much a tough sell back then as it ...[continue reading]

With winter around the corner some homeowners may be thinking about plugging all the leaks in their home to make them less drafty. Imagine if every homeowner in the country did that—how much energy could be saved? Using physics-based modeling of the U.S. housing stock, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found in a new study that upgrading airtightness to a uniform level could achieve as much as $33 billion in ...[continue reading]

The Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI) recently announced the national rollout of its advanced Home Energy Professional (HEP) certifications. The four HEP certifications—Energy Auditor, Retrofit Installer Technician, Crew Leader, and Quality Control Inspector—demonstrate advanced competency through work experience prerequisites, as well as rigorous written and field exams. These are the only home performance certifications that are both supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and accredited by the American ...[continue reading]

Home performance pros hear it all the time: “I had no idea I was using that much energy!” Homeowners are often unaware of just how much energy their appliances, electronics, and systems are using. This is the reason behind many marketing campaigns from utilities that urge homeowners and renters to be more aware of what’s going on in their homes. If occupants save energy, they’ll save money, and sometimes ...[continue reading]